A: BlueEarth Biofuels will use a variety of locally grown vegetable feedstocks for this project. For the first several years of plant operation, while local bio-crops are grown in response to our plant's purchasing demands, BlueEarth will use sustainable feedstock (as directed by HECO's stringent 'sustainable feedstock' purchasing policy) from producers fully employing and demonstrating sustainable production practices. The terms of the utility biodiesel sales agreement and the Project’s Special Purpose Revenue Bond financing require BlueEarth to use only vegetable feedstock from ‘sustainable’ sources.

A: The Hawaii Farm Bureau and local farmers have repeatedly said that they will not plant crops for biodiesel until a real biodiesel facility is built. In other words, farmers will not take the risk of acquiring new land and planting the new necessary bio-crops until a real market is in place. Who can blame them? In this “chicken and egg” scenario, we know that we must first build the facilities before local growers will plant the crops. In the interim, while those local crops are maturing, we must bring in off-land sustainable feedstock (either from mainland or foreign sources).

A: Only vegetable oil that complies with HECO's stringent purchasing policy and has been classified as a 'sustainable' feedstock by the Natural Resource Defense Council will be used. There is no vegetable feedstock available from the mainland that can currently comply with this very demanding sustainable purchasing policy. BlueEarth Biofuels is so far the only biodiesel producer in the country to commit to exclusively using sustainable vegetable feedstock for all biodiesel production.

A: Local agricultural bio-crop development is a foundational goal of the Project. BlueEarth’s off-take sales agreement with the utility and the Project’s special purpose revenue bond financing terms both require the project to use locally-produced feedstock as it becomes available. BlueEarth is so far the only biodiesel producer in the country willing to agree to stringent ‘local content’ feedstock purchasing requirements.

A: Yes. The Governor's Biofuels Summit identified nearly 140,000 acres of fallow agriculture land for growing bio-crops, without affecting other interests (food production, housing, etc.). This number does not include the recent shutdown of Dole's operations on Oahu nor Maui Land and Pineapple's cutbacks on Maui. The Hawaii Farm Bureau, the University of Hawaii, and various growers are working with us to select high-yield bio-crops (>500 gallons of yield per acre) to begin large-scale plantings. BlueEarth Biofuels is already negotiating and committing to long-term bio-crop contracts with local growers to allow these growers to secure financing and begin crop planting as early as 2008.

A: The Maui Farm Bureau has said, “We are not growing more food crops until Safeway guarantees us that they will buy our products at a profit.” Unfortunately, neither retail grocers nor consumers in the State appear ready to guarantee local farmers long term, profitable off-take contracts for food crops. Therefore without a sure end market and profit potential for food crops, it’s hard to imagine farmers making the large investment and taking the long-term economic risk of securing new land and planting food crops. This is one of the many reasons why we don’t currently see this fallow agricultural land and acreage being put into productive food crop production. We can only hope that the retail food industry would follow our lead and do the same to secure local, future, food crop production on our most productive sustainable resource, our land.

A: Industrial hemp has very little fatty acid content, which is needed for biodiesel production. Only oil rich seed crops currently make productive biodiesel feedstock crops.

A: The trust, using all of HECO’s net profits from the biodiesel plant, will be able to support the development of the new bio-crop industry in Hawaii. This could be done by supporting research into the best crops, funding a consortium that would help small farmers grow and process vegetable oil feed stocks for use in the biodiesel plant and even supporting the price of biofuels locally in the short run if energy prices drop. The trust could include representatives from state government and the public (such as representatives of the farming community, organized labor, and environmental groups).

A: The use of biodiesel in combustion has been found by Federal and private studies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions  by as much as 80% over traditional petroleum diesel. In fact, in the overall holistic production cycle ("crop to kilowatt") biodiesel is being shown to produce a net zero (no GHGs) to negative (actually subtracting GHGs from global levels), when effective and responsible land management practices are employed and adhered to in the crop cycle. This extremely clean renewable fuel is a perfect fit for replacing current diesel fuel consumption within the State (mostly for power generation) and achieving the State's energy self-sufficiency, security, renewable portfolio standard, and greenhouse gas emissions goals, without the rate-payers having to shoulder the extremely costly replacement of existing power-generation infrastructure.

A: There are over 130 biodiesel facilities currently in operation throughout the nation, installed mostly over the past 3 years. The typical plant size is generally over 20 million gallons per year, as the smaller old technology batch plants have proven too inefficient, uneconomical to operate, and incapable of meeting the ever-tightening federal fuels specifications for biodiesel quality. Biodiesel facilites are universally considered environmentally friendly by regulators and communities throughout the country with over 50 new facilities currently under construction this year alone, representing yet another 1.5 billion gallons of additional domestic production capacity.

A: No, they are not similar. Biodiesel facilities are correctly termed transesterification facilities, although the term “refinery” has sometimes been used for marketing purposes by the biodiesel industry to help the public quickly grasp the concept that biodiesel is a direct replacement fuel for petroleum diesel. No crude (unrefined) substance or petroleum product enters the biodiesel facility – the biodiesel feedstock is fully refined (purified) before it ever reaches the biodiesel facility for transesterification. Unlike oil refineries which import and convert petroleum crude oil, and produce environmentally harmful and toxic products using a high-heat fractionating process, biodiesel transesterification is the clean, safe, environmentally friendly, and simple catalytic process of converting vegetable and animal fats into a harmless but very useful fuel product – biodiesel. Biodiesel is ten times less toxic than ordinary table salt. Biodiesel is so safe and easy to produce that thousands of creative individuals across the country are already making low quality batch-process biodiesel daily in their backyards and garages for their own consumption. In fact, a class at Maui Community College is producing a batch of biodiesel this semester as part of their course curriculum. In sharp contrast to an industrial biodiesel facility, an oil refinery is assigned a distinctly different Standard Industrial Classification Code ("SICC") by Federal and State regulators and is precisely defined by the Federal Government for State and Federal regulatory and oversight purposes as, "a system of process units used to convert crude petroleum into fuels, lubricants and other petroleum-derived products."

A: Unique to this Project is our technological ability to purify (on-site) the glycerin waste stream, converting it to a useful power generation fuel. The glycerin will be combusted on-site to provide clean and renewable power and steam to the biodiesel conversion process (while at the same time lowering the biodiesel product price). The Project will NOT engage in the practice of sending the waste glycerin to the landfill for composting.

BlueEarth Biofuels LLC, in partnership with a new subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Company, plans to build a 40-million-gallon-per-year biodiesel plant on Maui, on MECO-owned land already zoned as “agricultural” and specifically designated for “renewable energy.” The jointly owned Project company is named “BlueEarth Maui Biodiesel LLC.” HECO, through an unregulated subsidiary, will own approximately half of the Project, while BlueEarth Biofuels will own the other half.

A: Hawaiian Electric Company has never taken a profit on fuel. All of the utility’s net profits from the Project will go directly into a Biofuels Public Trust, created to support local bio-crop research and local agricultural infrastructure development.

A: We know the price of fossil fuels goes up and down. But because of this Project’s unique, fully transparent cost and capped profit pricing structure (not tied to fossil fuels), it won’t be affected by changes in the price of regular diesel fuel. So if diesel prices go up, rate-payers’ prices will not necessarily go up with them.

A: After the many jobs created by the Plant’s construction, the new plant will create more than 50 high-paying, technical jobs when it opens in 2009. That number would grow to a total of over 80 by 2011 if expansion proceeds as planned. Secondly, the Plant (and Biofuels Public Trust) can rapidly stimulate diversification of Hawaii’s agriculture industry, creating countless new agricultural and associated infrastructure jobs within the State. Thirdly, by leveraging the excellent fuel replacement fit of biodiesel for traditional diesel (utilizing existing power generation assets), the rate-payers will not be asked to carry as high of a financial burden for HECO to achieve the mandated Renewable Portfolio Standards.

A: The Project has already locked-in the design and construction time slot commitments from its world class engineering and construction team, while having access to well-suited land, and capital financing commitments (in addition to HI State Special Purpose Revenue Bonds, if needed).

A: BlueEarth Biofuels' position is that it is not good enough. For many years, smaller inefficient dumpster-grease batch-process producers have been making biodiesel meeting the outdated ASTM D6751 specification, which is not “good enough” to satisfy vehicle manufacturer's warranty requirements. ASTM D6751 is an outdated biodiesel quality standard. The only way a consumer can be assured that they are getting biodiesel that complies with current federal standards (and not endangering their automobile manufacturer's warranty) is by ensuring that the biodiesel purchased is from a BQ-9000 certified producer, and compliant with ASTM D6751-07b (the most recent specification). Although Hawaii does not yet have consumer protection regulations requiring the sale of quality compliant biodiesel at retail pumps, knowledgeable consumers can verify biodiesel quality for themselves by checking to see that both of these quality standards (BQ-9000 and ASTM D6751-07b) are proudly and prominently displayed at the point of purchase.